Interview additions and a new recipe!

The lovely Ms. Teske set a follow up yesterday to her interview. She had demurred from answering one of the questions, saying that too many crazy things had happened to her (!) but she came up with a story, and I think it was a good one! Her story follows below.

Also, in the meantime, there’s a new recipe for Southern-style sweet tea that you can find here. It’s starting to get warm here in Arizona and I’m dreaming of summertime! This is the perfect refreshment for when it’s warm outside, or when you want to get start thinking about spring.

Here’s Tiffany’s craziest thing!

“In 2002, while traveling in a VW bus in Australia, which they call Kombi vans, I may have had the craziest thing that has ever happened to me happen (although I had three other stories I could have told you….). I was traveling with Andre, my then boyfriend, now husband, and our friend, Dan. If it was not crazy enough to agree to live in a van for 8 weeks with, at times, stinky and annoying boys (although I was also both of these things at time) I had no idea what we were in for. After traveling up the east coast of Aus, over about 5 weeks, we decided to head into the Outback. Here kangaroos are EVERYWHERE (3 million kangaroos are killed LEGALLY in Australia each year by Roo hunters), and sometimes it is 250 km between towns on a one lane road. When cars meet they each have to put their two outside wheels off into the ditch, or get off the road completely when meeting a tractor trailer, which can be a “road-train” with three containers! Well, on one of these lovely roads, in the middle of no where, or actually specifically somewhere between Longreach and Jundah, a truck passed us, completely in the ditch, then came back in front of us, and as it got back on the road, it threw a giant rock into our “windscreen” (or as we say in North America, windshield). Now, in vehicles made today, it may have cracked it, or even shattered it, but it would have stayed intact… not so in a 1970 something VW van. The windshield literally shattered, in a million cracks we could not see out of and then stayed that way for about 5 seconds at which point blew into the van. Dan, who was driving, thankfully had “sunnies” (sunglasses) on, but had to pick bits of glass out of himself, and even though I was the furthest in the back I had to, too. We were now in between two towns with VERY LITTLE traffic…. and we had already been through Longreach (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longreach,_Queensland), gone to Jundah, had van trouble, changed spark plugs in a dirt lot in Jundah, headed back to Longreach to go to a garage, and were now headed back to Jundah to continue our trip. Since we knew there was not a garage in Jundah that could work on VWs, we knew we needed to go back to Longreach FOR A THIRD TIME. We drove something like 90 km, without a windshield, which is NOT a picnic, in fact, there is a good reason we have windshields. We had to drive really slow, and at one point we almost hit a calf which could have flipped up into the van… the sun went down during all of this… I was never happier to reach a destination. Long story short, and it is a long, funny, and agonizing story, we spent 8 days in Longreach… a windscreen needed to be sent from the coast, and they only make two types of windscreens, but we got the wrong one sent to us the first time, and needed to wait something like 6 days for the right one to arrive! In the meantime, we befriended most of the town. The first day we got there, no one would talk to the crazy hippies in the Kombi with surfboards strapped to the top, and no windscreen, in the middle of the Outback. But, by the end of the 8 days we had befriended the VW mechanic, all the kids who played in the local park, and most of their parents who hung out at the biker bar in town. I went to every little hole in the wall museum in this 4,300 person town. We had little money, but did spend one night in a motel so we could shower, eat take out pizza, and watch movies. Our last night, to top it all off, was also pretty crazy… we went to the biker bar to see a band called The Lees. The bar was crawling with locals, including little kids. And The Lees (http://www.thelees.com.au/bandHistory.php) turned out to be a family band much like The Partridge Family. Mom played bass, Dad played guitar, brother, about 14 played the drums, sister about 17 sang, sister about 12 sang, and sister about 7 sang, played, and worked the lights…. it was crazy, awesome, amazing, and when the oldest daughter sang Alanis Morissette, a fellow Canadian to the guys (I am from the states) we decided to started talking to them on a break and told them our sad story. They hung out with us into the night, and even gave us one of the rooms attached to the bar, which they were staying in as the featured band. The next day, they gave us their coordinates in the town of Broken Hill, along with an invite to come and visit AND our new windscreen arrived! It was Andre’s birthday, and Dan’s birthday the next day…. Happy birthday, guys! The mechanic installed the screen, we headed to Broken Hill, and stayed with the family band for 3 days before heading home to Canada. Steve and Tracey, and their 4 kids, Raechel, Jarod, Faith and Savannah, are still friends of ours, and have come to visit us in Canada. Nothing could quite be crazier….

Thanks for the trip down memory lane. Now, I should take a class on how to write true life stories without rambling…”

2 Responses

Wow, what an excellent story. I think that is the kind of story that most people secretly hope for when going on roadtrips. Not so much the danger, but definitely the excitement and adventure, and getting to meet new people and find out the secret treasures of new places you visit.
Sounds like a movie. Thanks for sharing Tiff’s story 🙂

Thanks, Bri! And Robyn, for appreciating my ramblings. I truly do have several more stories to rival this one. And as luck would have it, I started taking a memoir writing class on Monday evening. Maybe I will be able to capture some of these memories, using good writing skills, and to share them in the future.